


cry about it.

by skepticallysighing



Category: Primal Fear (1996)
Genre: Aaron has DID, Aaron is innocent, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Depression, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Multiple Personalities, No closure, Panic Attacks, Past Rape/Non-con, Sad Ending, aaron can see roy tyler durden style, fight club inspired, no recovery just repression, not an accurate portrayal of DID
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:26:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28062378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skepticallysighing/pseuds/skepticallysighing
Summary: “You understand?”No, I don’t think understand anything, Aaron thought quietly.Or,Aaron and Roy are two separate identities Fight Club-style. The only coping mechanisms Aaron has to deal with the negative authority figures in his life are:1. Repress it and then never think about it again.2. Keep repressing it.3. Avoid anything that could lead to remembering it4. Remember everything all at once5. Cry about it.
Relationships: Aaron Stampler & Roy
Comments: 5
Kudos: 12





	cry about it.

**Author's Note:**

> "Aaron never existed, only Roy," you say. "You got tricked just like Marty because you believed Aaron and Roy were genuinely different people. There is no Aaron, he was just an act to help Roy get away with murder."  
> "You don't have all the facts," I say as I bust out a sad, Aaron/Roy-apologist story instead of the finals prep I so desperately need to finish.  
> "Which are?"  
> "I love him :("
> 
> or,  
> I dunno, man

Truth be told, Aaron didn’t know who was wearing the shoes when he had started running away.

He remembered things getting fuzzy earlier in the day, he  _ technically _ remembered waking up and seeing that  _ murder scene _ , and he remembered running, but it wasn’t like he was really there. It was like someone else was in his body, taking him and running with him, like he was running while hanging onto the back of a car. Feet being forced along, barely touching the ground.

The train was ringing in his ears, but they sounded like screams.

As he ran under the overpass, a thought came to him, and it slowed him down.

_ When I saw what happened, I didn’t feel bad. I didn’t do it, but I just didn’t really feel bad. I didn’t feel anything, I don’t feel- _

“Hey,” Roy said to him, maybe in his head or maybe right by his shoulder. “Don’t stop now, you gotta keep moving.  _ Goddammit, keep moving! _ ”

But Aaron was already thinking. The guilt of not caring when he saw that  _ horrible, horrible sight _ was overwhelming, and he was tripping over his feet.

“You fucking piece of shit.”

“You took his ring,” Aaron mumbled weakly.

“Oh,  _ for fucks sake _ \- the next time you need me, see if I’m there, see if I’m fucking there, you stupid  _ sissy _ -”

He couldn’t run anymore.

When he lied down, tucked into the rocks, he was himself. Though he didn’t do a thing, he could take in everything. He could feel the ground tremble as the train passed, he could smell blood, he could hear his own gasping, terrified breaths, he could see as men in long suits came to gather around him, to handcuff him. When he was surrounded by the people with cameras and being shoved into the police car, he was himself. Unreactive, and so  _ numbed out _ .

_ But _ , he thought as he was driven away in handcuffs,  _ I’m free.  _

Roy was the only person looking out for him.

He had sat besides him in the van once Aaron had started to reassociate back into his own body. While Roy’s constant cussing didn’t do him a lick of good in feeling better, it was sure nice to have someone sitting by his side, keeping him company. No one but Roy had ever been in Aaron’s corner. He had thought, maybe the bishop, but now he knew better.

The thing is, Aaron didn’t want to lie. When Roy took over his body and  _ did that _ , Aaron hadn’t been in the body. He’d been in the corner of the room, curled up in a small ball with his arms wrapped around his knees. It was always an out-of-body-experience, when Roy took over. Aaron would be standing still in one place, so overwhelmed with grief and pain that he’d stay put and watch as Roy took over and ran at whoever had hurt them. This is how it had been when he last saw Linda, when he had begged Roy to  _ help me, help me, please- _ Aaron had slid down against the wall on the brink of sobs while watching his own body, governed by Roy.

When the police asked, Aaron said there had been a third person in the room, because Roy said that he needed to lead with that if he didn’t want to die. They disregarded it.

A man in a nice suit came in, talking to the security guard. Aaron hadn’t been listening, so it took him by surprise when the man stepped into his cell. He peeked up at the man for a split second before looking back to the ground.

“Eyes up,” Roy ordered, and Aaron quickly obeyed. He stayed attentive now, nervously readjusting while the man came and sat down too close. He didn’t like it. The last time he had gotten close to someone-

“Do you know who I am?” the man asked, absolutely radiating confidence.

“Well-”

“You don’t. I’ve never seen him in my life,” Roy told him, from where he sat across the ways in the cell. Roy wouldn’t leave him alone, not when a strange man with a knowing, confident gaze was staring Aaron down and asking him questions.

“Nuh-no sir, no, I don’t,” he admitted, wanting to cringe at his own stutter, at his own raw, sad voice.

“My name is Martin Vail,” the man, Martin Vail, said. “I’m what you call a  _ big shot attorney _ .”

And that was unfortunate, because-

“I don’t- I don’t have no money.”

“I didn’t think you did. I’m willing to take your case pro bono, which means you get all my expertise and hard work for free.”

Aaron’s mind was immediately racing. Why would he do that? He had been in this situation before, right? Where he had been hopeless and helpless and in desperate need of help, and some power, confident, and unbelievably-giving man had come to kindly,  _ givingly _ offer him protection -- that sounded a little bit too familiar.

“I don’t think so,” Roy countered, reading Aaron’s mind. “I think this bastard wants to-”

“But, if you don’t want that-” Mr. Vail apparently decided Aaron had taken too long to answer, and began to explain that the other option was to just accept a cheap, court-appointed public defender, and therefore, accept his death.

“Don’t get scared now,” Roy ordered, and his voice made Aaron feel safer, because he wasn’t alone right now. “This bastard’s fixin’ to scare you. He thinks this shit is gonna make him famous.”

_ That’s still taking advantage of me, ain’t it? _ Aaron thought, glancing over at Roy.

“It’s takin’ advantage of the situation, not you, you dumb  _ shit _ ,” he snapped back. “You better keep talking to him. Anyways, I’m here. No one’s ever gonna touch you again.”

That made Aaron feel a little better. He wished he had let Roy in sooner.

“-n-nosir, I’d surely be gruh-” he stumbled, trying to convince himself that this was a good thing, “Grateful for anything you’d do for me.”

“You’re welcome.”

“But he’s real pretentious, ain’t he?” Roy smirked. “ _ Pro bono _ ? Is that Latin?”

It almost made Aaron smile. They had both heard enough Latin for one lifetime.

He fumbled his own name when Mr. Vail asked for it, repeating it too loud. But the way Mr. Vail smiled warmly and pinpointed his accent made him feel a little better. He kept asking questions, about how long Aaron had been here in the city, how he met the bishop, how he’d been taken to the savior house for-

“A year and a half. Yuh- you’re supposed to leave when you’re eighteen, buh-b-but the Bishop Rushman let me say on  _ way _ past my nineteenth birthday.”

“That was nice of him.”

The mild safe feeling burst immediately. Bad memories threatened to bubble up and over, to drown him in it. He could sense Roy stiffen up too. They met eyes briefly from across the cell. The doppelganger didn’t move, because Aaron hadn’t asked him to. But he flicked his eyes over to Mr. Vail, and Aaron quickly looked back at the man.

Mr. Vail was watching him carefully, taking in Aaron’s reaction. Could he tell? Could hot shot attorney’s look at you and know what’s happened to you?

“Yes, yes it was,” Aaron lied, letting the anxiety rush deflate back down.

Mr. Vail had noticed something was off, but he didn’t say anything, instead continuing on. When he asked more questions, about the bishop and the murder, Aaron let Roy feed him words. Roy helped him say the right things, let him believably sad and explain the mysterious third person. Running away. Losing time.

Aaron felt like he could just slip away right now.

He knew Roy had a plan, but he didn’t know what it was. It was scary, not knowing, but things couldn’t get any scarier than they had already gotten, right?

Mr. Vail had been talking for a while, but he added: “You understand?”

_ I don’t understand anything _ , he thought quietly.

“ _ Yeah _ ?” Mr. Vail asked harshly, and it made Aaron flinch.

“Yes, yessir, I do.”

“Alright, now the important stuff,” he said, putting away his glasses and his notebook (when had he taken those out?) “What’s your suit size?”

He blinked, genuinely surprised. Mr. Vail had such a friendly, kind smile that Aaron could trick himself into believing the man actually cared what happened to him.

“Suit size, what are you, about a 38?”

He looked down at himself, noticing that Roy wasn’t there anymore. It was just Aaron by himself with Mr. Vail, because Roy must’ve decided Aaron wasn’t in danger anymore. It made him laugh a little, grinning back up. “Well, I don’t know!” he admitted, absolutely sure now that he was gonna be safe.

Now he had two people looking out for him.

He was transferred somewhere else pretty soon. Aaron didn’t really know how to describe it with those big, fancy words like  _ pro bono _ , but he knew he liked it a little more. He had a bed, and a pillow he could prop up on the wall. It wasn’t fun to be here, no sir. When he had walked through the halls, he had felt the other inmates staring at him all feral and questioning.

“Let’m stare,” Roy murmured. “They can’t get close to you.”

Someone else could, though.

Mr. Vail asked questions, but he looked like he already knew the answer. Aaron couldn’t tell how much he knew and how much he didn’t know, and it felt like talking to some genius with all the answers. On top of that, despite the man’s fancy suits and sharp glasses and academic vocabulary, he had a feral twinkle in his eye. Aaron had seen that kind of twinkle before. In the bishop, he didn’t like it a bit, because the twinkle meant something very bad. It was so bad that he could feel Roy’s hands covering his eyes and ears whenever the memory started to bubble back up.

But right now, in Mr. Vail’s eyes, Aaron could recognize the feral twinkle of victory, and that felt like the kind of knowing, feral person Aaron needed on his side.

When Mr. Vail came back, he talked Aaron over the procedures of how the first day in the big court-house would go. Aaron nodded along and tried to soak up as much as he could, but Mr. Vail talked fast and he kept pacing. It made him feel nervous in a way he couldn’t explain. It was so complicated.

“-judge’s gonna ask you how you plead-”

“Nuh-nu-nn…. _ not _ guilty,” Aaron said.

“No.”

“But I’m nuh-not guilty, Mr. Vail.”

Even though Mr. Vail continued aggressively and assertively telling him how it was gonna be, Aaron noticed that he didn’t cut off his stutter. That was kinda nice.

“For fucks sake, Aaron,” Roy muttered in disgust, “You’d trust just about anybody who gave you the time of day, I sw-”

“-so you might as well get used to it now,” Mr. Vail interrupted, “ _ I speak, you do not speak _ , just sit there and look innocent.”

Aaron looked up at both of them, blinking like someone who’s trying to stay awake, not sure who to listen to more. Wherever he went, someone told him how to act, didn’t they? “Well...I am innocent.”

That made Mr. Vail light up, clap his hands, and point at him. Aaron didn’t react to him jumping around other than to follow him with passively observant eyes. “ _ That’s it! _ That’s  _ exactly  _ how I want you to look. Remember that look, look into the mirror right now if you’ve got to.”

“Well, I don’t have to, because I always look like this,” he said softly. Mr. Vail said something back, but it was drowned out by Roy letting out a laugh. Because Aaron did  _ not _ always look like that, not when Roy was at the steering wheel. That was so funny that Roy’s laughter pushed through Aaron’s face into a smile.

“Don’t smile,” Mr. Vail said quickly.

Aaron wiped the smile quickly off his mug, but when he saw the twinkle in Mr. Vail’s eyes, he couldn’t help the smiles and laughter that poured out of him.

Mr. Vail kept asking Aaron what he could remember, and Roy insisted he couldn’t say anything. Anyways, Aaron wouldn’t have wanted to admit what he had seen. It wouldn’t make sense. He didn’t want to let any of those memories back in.

But when he sat down with Mr. Vail’s psychologist in front of a recording video camera, things started coming back.

He didn’t want Mr. Vail to leave the room, but he met the man’s friendly smile when he left, before looking back to Miss- he didn’t remember her name. Had she said it? Had someone told him? All he could think about was that video camera and the tape-

She had asked him something about what he could remember.

“Yes, uh-uh...I, luh-luh-...lost time,” he confirmed. He had to look at the table when he felt himself stumbling over the words, but once he got them, he’d look right back up at her. When he saw her face, he remembered quickly that Mr. Vail hadn’t known what he meant. “I mean- ah-I blacked out.”

She nodded, looking like she was really hearing him. “Have you had these blackouts before?”

“Yes, yes, I have.”

“When’s the first time you remember them happening?”

His head was a little tilted, his mouth parted like a dead fish, suddenly vividly picturing the house he grew up in. He had known Roy was there watching over him since he was young, but when had he first let Roy in?

“Um,” he looked upward, but there was nothing up there, so he looked aside. Roy wasn’t here. Aaron didn’t know where he was. “They stuh-stuh-started when I was about twelve, I think.”

“Were your parents aware of wh...”

When she said  _ parents _ , he could picture a face. A voice.

“No, no, no, no, muh-muh-” it was hard to get out. “My mother was  _ dead _ .”

“And your father?”

In the back of his head, he could remember exactly how it had been to hear his father’s car pulling into the driveway, to run run  _ run _ upstairs and hide just in case, to make himself  _ scarce _ .

He mm-mmed no, shaking his head. It hurt to remember. “No, no,” he managed, but the memories wouldn’t stop coming. He hadn’t been forced to think about his father in so long, and how scared he had been every night when he heard heavy boots walk past his bedroom door, watching the shadow that passed.

“Just say he wasn’t a nice man,” Roy whispered into his left ear. Aaron couldn’t see out that side anymore, he knew that was the eye Roy was using to see out of.

“He was  _ not _ a very nice man,” repeated Aaron, but he didn’t feel any stronger with Roy there, because Roy’s voice, his language, everything about him was so intertwined with his father.

“Did you seek treatment?”

Because Roy walked and talked and shouted like his father had. But Roy would never hurt Aaron, because Roy loved him. He’d say nasty, mean things, but he would kill (he had killed) for him. His father would never love nor protect him, because that man was nothing but cruel. And his found father the archbishop had been a very different type of cruel, but cruel just the same.

“Truh- what?”

“Um-...did you see a doctor for them?”

“Oh, no, no,” and he laughed at that, looking away, because “You don’t go see a doctor in Creekside unless your leg’s broke.”

That made the woman laugh.

They talked for a little bit about this, about that. Nice things.

Linda.

She was dead, he knew that, but he didn’t remember why. She must’ve done something that only Roy knew about, and all that Aaron would let himself remember were pretty, happy memories of a girl with pretty, brown hair and big, dreamy eyes.

Talking about Linda brought him out of his haze, made him feel happier and safer, made him remember her so sweet and kind and loving. Even if something had made Roy hate her, Aaron still loved-

“Were you sleeping with her?”

“Well, that’s-” he laughed, trying not to remember. “Well, that’s private.”

But she pushed it.

“Were you having a sexual relationship, Aaron?”

It was threatening to come back. The bad memories were humming in the back of his mind like a train overhead. It was that-

“Yes, yes we were. We were.”

\- feeling he hated, of being vulnerable and small. People who made him feel like he was back in his childhood house. Who pretended they were going to be gentle and kind, and then turned right around to expose and humiliate him. Who did things to him that made him feel unlovable.

“Were you sleeping with anyone else at the time?”

She was looking at him so knowingly, like she knew what had happened to him. He felt himself slip for a second, felt himself lean back as Roy leaned forward, but he rebalanced himself quickly.

“No.”

“Was she?”

_ Roy _ , he thought, eyes flickering up to the ceiling on the verge of rolling back.  _ Roy, help me, please. _

“Has she been to see you Aaron?”

Aaron knew that Linda had done something, there was some tipping point where he had turned to Roy and said “Please, I can’t take it anymore, please help me,” and Roy had taken over. He could remember how much Roy hated Linda, how goddamn vicious he had been.

Aaron touched the side of his head as his head throbbed.

“Are you fucking scared?” Roy hissed.

“Well, no, but-” he didn’t know who he was talking to, because he just wanted Roy to take him far away from this place, far away from people who would take him apart.

“Does that upset you?”

_ Help! I’m gonna cry! _

“Stop your crying. This bitch is tryin’ ta provoke you. Tell her Linda went away.”

“No, no,” Aaron was talking on habit, like back when he had been running away. “The thing is, she went away. She went- she went away for awhile. She left buh-before this happened, I don’t even think, don’t even think she even knows about it.”

He met the lady’s eyes, protecting his anxious heart from her all-seeing gaze. She wasn’t gonna get into his head. He wouldn’t let her, not today.

The camera, still recording, might.

The lady seemed pleasant. Molly, her name was Molly. And she tricked him into laughing and smiling, because Aaron would always laugh and smile if it meant some parently person would smile back. 

But, he always got fooled, because these parently people? His father, Bishop Rushmann, Molly,  _ Mr. Vail _ , they all wanted to see him come apart and break down.

Roy knew Aaron couldn’t handle it, but he didn’t try to step in. Not unless Aaron let him. It wasn’t enough to say “Roy, please, I think I’m gonna die!”

And Roy would come around and gauge the situation, would tell him what to do about it.

After the bishop finished making the last of his vile home movies, Aaron had curled up in a ball in the shower, the water burning hot. His skin was rubbed raw and pink, and he had sobbed himself into a shaking mess.

“Puh-p-puh-” he couldn’t get the words out, he was too shaken up for that.

“Quit it,” Roy told him. “Stop fucking crying, what’s wrong with you?”

Aaron shook his head, he couldn’t speak. He felt gross and awful, like nobody could ever love him again. On that day, he could remember Linda said something to him that broke his heart, and the session had been much more intimate and humiliating than usual. He couldn’t take it, not anymore.

“Anyways,” Roy had continued. “What the fuck am I gonna do right now? Hm?”

Aaron sniffled.

“Dumb fuck. Dumbass, good for nuthin’-” Roy exhaled real loud, leaning his head back and looking up to the shower ceiling. “Why don’t you ever call for me when it’s happening?”

“Yuh-y-yu-y-y-”

_ I forget. I forget to. When it’s happening, it’s just so in-the-moment, I feel like all I can do is take everything in. I can’t remember to call for you. _

“Well, ask me to when it happens again,” Roy ordered. “The next time you’re in the middle of something and you’re so scared you feel this bad again, you call me. You hear that? You come  _ get _ me, and I’ll beat their ass.”

And Lord, he did.

Back in the small room, Molly was trying to make Aaron talk about Linda. The camera was beeping, like Rushmann’s used to when he had been filming for hours. Aaron didn’t want to think about Linda, about this. He didn’t want to, he tried to tell her he wouldn’t, he couldn’t right now. Because talking about Lind-

“-talking about Linda upsets you.”

“It duh-dih-d- _ doesn’t _ ,” he argued, rubbing his neck. He could feel the camera on him, recording him so that he could be rewound and rewatched over and over again. This was just like back at the saviour house, he was just some helpless person to put in front of the camera-

“I just duh-d-” he struggled, his tongue felt heavy. “-wanna talk about it right now!”

_ Roy, I can’t, I can’t do it. _

“She ain’t hurting you none. Be a fucking man,  _ stop that _ .”

“Why not?”

He was suffocating. He was being dissected.

“You alright?”

The camera’s beeping was getting louder.

_ Please- _

“No, my head hurts,” he croaked, the tears he was trying to hold back making his voice crack.

“Okay, I’m sorry,” she said softly, rising up and fixing the camera.

_ Roy, please. _

He rested his face in his palms, hiding his eyes away and numbing out, but his body kept moving. Aaron stayed with his face hidden in his hands. But Roy whipped his head up, vicious and mean, cussing the woman out. It was hard to hear, like Aaron was underwater, but he could feel when his body was back and he was grounded again.

“Wuh-” his mouth tripped, not fully back in himself, eyes still out of focus. “Wuh-what….wha wus you sayin’?”

She was staring at him hard, shaken, because she had seen Roy, and she knew who was protecting Aaron.

“I ain’t doin’ that again, you hear me? She wasn’t even doin’ nuthin, you just don’t know how to handle a goddamn thing. You fucking-”

Mr. Vail pushed the door open, and Roy’s voice seemed to die down, because Mr. Vail always radiated safety. He never pushed Aaron, not like- not like  _ Molly _ -

Until he did.

“Do you trust me?”

“D-d-do…” It made Aaron smile when he realized the question. “Yes, yes, of course I do.”

“Good, because I don’t trust you.”

It was like a knife to the gut, and his stomach dropped. He couldn’t get the word  _ what? _ out, lips moving helplessly.

“Let me lay it out for you,” Mr. Vail said, so passive-aggressively turning the camera off. Aaron felt a second of relief when he saw the camera’s gaze move away from him, because a second later, Mr. Vail was shouting at him.

“-losing this case, cause my fucking client is fucking lying to me!”

“I nuh-nuh-never-never-”

And Mr. Vail fucking  _ threw _ the table. He shoved it all the way across the room, getting close to Aaron, and it felt like Aaron was back in his childhood home to have someone he trusted scaring him like this.

“No bullshit, no more bullshit, no more games, everyone thinks you did this, everybody! I’m the only one who believes you, and I am  _ that close _ , so I want it all out right now, all of it, right here.”

He was shaking something awful, already on the verge of panic again. He tried to look away from the loud and frightening man. Had he really seen Mr. Vail as a new found father already?

_ Why do the people who take me under their wing always hurt me? _

“-ey,  **hey** .” Mr. Vail snapped close to Aaron’s face, scaring him back into looking up and meeting his gaze.

Feral and cruel.

“Did you underline that book?”

“No, no,” and his voice was wrapped up in tears again, he was losing his words, he was losing his time. He was back in his childhood house, trying to protest that he wasn’t bad, that he didn’t deserve to be hurt. “No, no, I didn’t.”

“I don’t believe you!”

“I-”

“That is bullshit!”

“I told y-, I told you-”

_ Ro- _

_ “I saw the tape!” _

Aaron felt his entire world crumble down around him and everything go numb. It felt like everything was real again, like he was right back in  _ that room _ .

_ He remembered so vividly hiding his face from the camera in Linda’s shoulder, the only safe place in the entire world. He could hear the kind, gentle bishop’s voice praising him. He could remember the cold-hot feeling of being completely vulnerable and completely unlovable. _

“I saw the tape, I know what he did to you.”

_ Completely ruined. _

He ripped away like the table had burned him.

“I wanna hear it from you.”

“No,  _ no _ !” he screamed like he’d never screamed before, voice worldly and here, as he hid his face in the wall.

“Don’t fuckin’ do this, I want you to tell me the truth, and don’t even think about lying!”

He was sobbing so hard, like every terrifying, degrading, miserable moment of his life had been spliced together into one, horrible feeling. Like when opposite waves hit each other and make a big wave, and he was drowning under it.

“You fucking killed him, didn’t you? You fucking killed him! You did it! You killed him!”

“...no…”

“You fucking did it, you’re so full of shit, you did it, didn’t you?!”

Aaron kept his hands pressed up against the wall, hitting his head against the wall like Roy had slammed the bishop’s face into the floor as he beat him to death.

“Don’t lie to me, you little fuck, you did it, you killed him!”

_ Roy, Roy, help me, help me! _

His hands went numb when Roy took them.

Suddenly he was out of his body with his back against the wall. He could see himself still leaning head first against the wall, Roy staring back at him through his own eyes, hateful and mean and  _ safe _ .

_ Roy, huh-he’s, he’s, he nuh- _

“You son of a bitch, you fucking killed him!” shouted Mr. Vail, voice vicious but from far away. Everything sounded underwater now, except for Roy’s clear voice.

“What the hell ‘you want from me now?” Roy asked angrily, only now coming to the surface when Aaron had called for him.

_ He, I can’t, I called you, I remembered. He’s, he, he’s- _

Quit your crying! I can’t understand a goddamn word you’re saying!” Roy snapped at him, yelling at him in the  _ familiar _ way, the  _ safe _ way.

_ I’m suh-sih-s- _

“You little sissy -- you make me  _ sick _ .” 

Roy let go of the wall, and Aaron collapsed into a puddle on the ground. He covered up his face immediately as Roy turned on Mr. Vail. The adrenaline of the vivid memories was gone. All that was left to do was to cry himself into numbness.

_ “You ever pull that tough guy shit on Aaron again, I’ll fucking kick your ass, you understand me?” _

“Aaron!”

He looked quickly to his right at Molly, in front of him, Mr. Vail was on the ground. Aaron was in his body again. Oh, god- how much time had passed? When had Roy left the body and let Aaron back in?

A wave of dizziness brought him to the ground, and he held his throbbing head as he put all the mushy, messy memories back together.

When his head cleared a little, Aaron let his eyes flick back up to Mr. Vail, who was watching him in a strange way. Pious and gentle. He wasn’t yelling anymore, wasn’t shouting anymore.

_ He knows I didn’t kill anyone. He believes that I’m innocent. _

“You’re fucking welcome for that,” Roy said dryly.

_ Thank you. _

“Yeah, you did the right thing. He won’t be scarin’ you no more.”

“Mr. Vail?” he asked softly, voice feeling so raw and overused from crying his poor eyes out.

“Yeah,” Mr. Vail said, and his voice was gentle too. “I’m right here.”

When Aaron started to cry again, Mr. Vail let him come into his arms. The hot shot attorney held him while he sobbed away all his hurt and misery, all the pain he had been keeping bottled up. It was maybe the only time someone had held him with no other intention than to just comfort him and keep him safe.

There was no laughing and smiling now, no pushing him to fall apart and to break down. He was safe.

He would never be free, he never had been. All he had was numb feelings and people with dubious intentions watching out for him.

All that was left was to hide his face in Mr. Vail’s shoulder and pretend he was safe. Just for a little while.


End file.
